Dear Evan Hansen: How Do We Experience Collective Grief?

“Dear Evan Hansen” is a humorous, sensitive exploration of family, friendship, and authenticity. Director Ava Della Pietra ’27 and the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club brought the show to campus, and it concluded its five-day run from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1 at the Loeb Ex Theater.

The show opens with Evan Hansen (Jack McCarthy ’30) cross-legged on his bed. At his therapist’s direction, Evan writes letters to himself that begin with the iconic line: “Dear Evan Hansen, today will be a good day and here’s why.” As one of these letters falls into the hands of Connor Murphy (Aidan Vissers ’29), a boy who takes his own life early in the show, Evan Hansen is unwillingly cast as Connor’s secret best friend and the only person who can help Connor’s family navigate their grief.

With a story that arises from a teenage boy’s suicide, how does one balance humor, respect, and sincerity in the treatment of this subject? Indeed, “Dear Evan Hansen” was brought to life by the powerhouse cast and staff here at Harvard. It’s a perfect dance, lathered with care and love, as it explores the complexities of collective grief.

“Dear Evan Hansen” opens with Evan at the start of his senior year. His mother, Heidi (Dessa Kavrakis ’27), encourages Evan to make friends by asking them to sign his arm cast. Heidi plays a doting, although scatterbrained, mom, endearingly fist-bumping Evan’s arm. In the opening act, we also meet the Murphy household. During the opening ballad “Anybody Have a Map?,” where the show’s two central mother characters sing about the struggles, confusion, and fear of raising teenage sons, the background is split half-red, half-blue through a projection, so that we are introduced to the Murphy household, where Connor’s mother, Cynthia (Cassidy Crabb ’28), joins Heidi. This blocking, choreographed by Tala Sanford ’29, moves Heidi and Cynthia left, right, back, and forward around all four corners of the stage as the actors mourn “another stumble as [they] reach for the right thing to say.” This choreography brought to life the difficulty these mothers face when raising a kid struggling with his own mind.

As the show seamlessly transitions to the second track, “Waving Through a Window,” Evan first confesses his insecurity with being in the spotlight—literally. The lights, designed by Jessie Zheng ’29 and Kiri-Anna Kingsbury Lee ’28, illuminate Evan’s face, timed to his attempts to dodge them and “step out, step out of the sun,” illustrating a recurring fear of attention. These set designers make the most of the confined Loeb Ex space, which feels expanded through projections. In this song, Evan appears alone on stage, shrouded in darkness. In a subsequent song, “Sincerely, Me,” Evan recruits his family friend Jared (Fred Klein ’28) to draft backdated letters, singing with a mix of crude teenage-boy humor and genuine confessions of loneliness. The mastery of contrast—whether to capture the character’s loneliness or to shift scenes comically—keeps the audience on the edge of their seats, always surprised by what new scene unfolds next.

This feeling of discovery with each show also comes from the staff. Della Pietra describes each show as a chance for a new interpretation of “Dear Evan Hansen,” a new dance between cast and audience.

“I’m always surprised how different demographics react to different things,” Pietra said in an interview with the “Independent.” “I think tonight with more family and parents in the audience, there were a lot of heavier moments where we were hearing more gasps than laughs.”

Further, a unique attribute of Harvard’s rendition of “Dear Evan Hansen” is the versatile paneled projections in the background. These translucent, fleeting images fracture, expand, and shape-shift with the scenes, as Evan assumes a mirage of an identity projected onto him by others’ expectations.

“It also created a nice visual to create the feeling of being overwhelmed by the internet. The simplicity of the set also allowed the actors to really carry the show as well,” Della Pietra explained.

To raise suicide awareness, the Connor Project—a social media campaign—is spearheaded by Alana (Finley Mcelhinny ’27), another student at Evan’s high school. Alana is a stereotypical class know-it-all, a tongue-in-cheek nod to what elite college students like Harvard students might have been like in high school. Although Alana thrives on media attention, Evan does not. Amid the cacophony of strings in “You Will Be Found,” Evan begins to experience the internet’s onslaught in support of the Connor Project, and the screen flickers in and out with comments, likes, and reposts. The song is the emotional center of Act I.

Before the show’s run, the team asked Harvard students to submit friend-group photos that someone might post in an Instagram carousel. If students our age are implicated in the very questions of online authenticity that “Dear Evan Hansen” asks, incorporating our own faces into the backdrop of the play makes that messaging undeniable.

Further, “Dear Evan Hansen”—with a Tony Award-winning score—was a sonic feast. Co-music director Ellie Guo ’29 conducted this tantalizing score, composed by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

The chemistry between pit and cast is evident. In one moment of particular perfection, the frustration and confusion of Zoe Murphy (Lana Schwartz ’27) about her expectations to mourn her brother is conveyed in “Requiem”—a number where the pit crescendos as Zoe grows agitated, then falls out perfectly so that we are left with Zoe’s tender, raw soprano voice confessing “I cannot play the grieving girl and lie.” The pit guides us, tells us when the waterworks should flow, and establishes the rhythm of our heart as we follow along.

“Dear Evan Hansen” excels because it treats all the characters with forgiveness—not just Evan. After all, playing Evan Hansen comes with its own difficulty—he fools Connor’s parents and pursues Zoe Murphy, the dead boy’s sister.

In Jack’s words, “there’s a sort of, Gen Z, resentment towards the show, because people don’t really [understand]. As long as I can get some people on his side at certain points, though, that was

definitely my goal.”

For example, one key relationship that the musical explores is that of Connor’s mother and father— Cynthia and Larry (Ben Arthurs ’27). In one particular exchange, Cynthia regrets not doing enough to help Connor. She shouts in anger at Larry for having mistaken Connor’s first suicide attempt as a bid for attention. In just a snippet of their fight, we see their different parenting approaches and the difficulty of truly understanding and caring for a child.

There is much to take away from “Dear Evan Hansen”—for both the staff and the audience.

Co-music director Nathan Tesler ’27 believes the recurring theme of “Dear Evan Hansen” is its emphasis on the mother-son relationship.

“I really just want to emphasize the point of the difficulty of raising a child who’s going through challenges, and the relationship between the mother and the son is one of the most important themes of the show,” he said.

As for the lead, Jack emphasizes learning from Evan. “Main thing to take out of this show—you are not alone. Lead with empathy. And be honest.”

Dessa Kavrakis ’27 concurs. “Stories are complicated,” she said. “There’s a lot of layered messaging here, a lot of complicated and controversial pieces of the show. Under Ava’s directorship, she really pushed us to probe ‘what would this character feel in this moment?’ given all these confounding feelings.”

“Dear Evan Hansen” is perhaps best described as an attempt to take us into a growing boy’s life. Brought to campus, this musical is a timely reminder to approach those around us with understanding and an open ear. Nothing about this musical is didactic or judgmental; we are just witnesses—weeping and laughing, booing and cheering on Evan as he finds his footing. One cannot help but think of the age-old adage from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus: “The only constant is change”—and through this roller coaster of a life, nothing will ever be better than simply being yourself.

Cloris Shi ’29 (clorisshi@college.harvard.edu) can’t admire the “Dear Evan Hansen” team more.